kill myself. And the worst of all was, that I felt I could not do it.
Not twice or three times, but tens and hundreds of times, I reached those
conditions, first of joy and animation, and then of despair and
consciousness of the impossibility of living.
I remember that it was in early spring: I was alone in the wood listening to
its sounds. I listened and thought ever of the same thing, as I had constantly
done during those last three years. I was again seeking God.
"Very well, there is no God," said I to myself; "there is no one who is not
my imagination but a reality like my whole life. He does not exist, and no
miracles can prove His existence, because the miracles would be my
imagination, besides being irrational.
"But my perception of God, of Him whom I seek," I asked myself, "where
has that perception come from?" And again at this thought the glad waves
of life rose within me. All that was around me came to life and received a
meaning. But my joy did not last long. My mind continued its work.
"The conception of God is not God," said I to myself. "The conception is
what takes place within me. The conception of God is something I can
evoke or can refrain from evoking in myself. That is not what I seek. I seek
that without which there can be no life." And again all around me and
within me began to die, and again I wished to kill myself.
But then I turned my gaze upon myself, on what went on within me, and I
remembered all those cessations of life and reanimations that recurred
within me hundreds of times. I remembered that I only lived at those times
when I believed in God. As it was before, so it was now; I need only be
aware of God to live; I need only forget Him, or disbelieve Him, and I died.
What is this animation and dying? I do not live when I lose belief in the
existence of God. I should long ago have killed myself had I not had a dim
hope of finding Him. I live, really live, only when I feel Him and seek Him.
"What more do you seek?" exclaimed a voice within me. "This is He. He is